In the autumn evening she was coming back from fetching water. The buckets were heavy, and she was still a little girl, barely a young woman. She carried them and carried them, then set them down. Grandmother had wrapped a shawl around her head, brought it beneath her arms and tied it at her back; she looked like a village doll. Her thin dress did not keep her warm; it was cold, the buckets were heavy, but a secret joy lived within her. The cause of that joy was the Arzumanyans’ boy, who circled her on his bicycle, sped ahead, went far away, came back and circled her, fell behind and came round again. The evening was somehow muffled; there were no other sounds, only the bicycle’s faint rustle and its dim light. It was not dark yet; the bicycle lamp lit only itself, but the Arzumanovs’ boy wanted to please the girl, so he had switched it on. And the girl liked it; there was some womanly joy inside her. Garden fences stood on either side of the road; the road was empty, only they were there. Then at the distant bend her drunken brother came onto the road and approached, swaying. By then they had reached their yard gate. The Arzumanovs’ boy broke out of his circle and sped into the distance, and she entered the yard.
She entered the yard: her little brother, holding a goose in his arms, was chasing the elder brother, who fled in terror and circled among the trees. He wanted to run to his mother, but strangers were with her; it would be shameful. Their mother and her stepmother stood in the yard with her arms folded across her chest, facing her paternal aunt’s bright, open-browed Nerses and an unfamiliar big-headed man, dark, shy and ugly, who played with the toe of his shoe with the tip of a switch. She loved her aunt’s son; she put the buckets down and went to shake his hand, then was reaching out to the dark-headed ugly one when she understood that Nerses had brought him for another purpose. She went cold, stood still and hated Nerses. Then the gate swung back and her drunken brother Voskan entered the yard. She darted past him, out of the yard, and ran to Grandmother’s house. The Arzumanyans’ boy rode his bicycle ahead of her and behind her, but she saw him without understanding.
She fell into Grandmother’s lap, hid in Grandmother’s lap; Grandmother’s lap was her only hiding place. She remembers saying, “Big-headed, dark, ugly.” She buried herself in Grandmother’s lap, wanted to vanish into Grandmother’s skirts, was almost disappearing in Grandmother’s lap.
“Ugly… dark… big-headed… poor…”
Then Grandmother wept a song and combed her hair. Like that, without the shawl, in only a dress, she was a slender girl, like a one-year shoot, and Grandmother’s song was about an orphan abandoned in the forest: “The doe will come and give you milk.” “The doe will come and give you mi-ilk.” “The doe will come and give you mi-i-ilk.”
“The wind will come and rock you… lullaby, dear orphan, lullaby… The doe will come and give you milk.”
“The doe will come and give you milk,” Grandmother sang, combing her hair, while the Arzumanyans’ boy stood in the open doorway, looking and blinking.
Her stepmother begrudged giving her the cardigan. With her head inside the cupboard, she had chosen a cardigan in Ishkhan’s wealthy house and secretly turned it this way and that; then she openly compared the cardigan with the girl and begrudged the cardigan. Her drunken brother Voskan clung motionless to a tree in the garden, because if he moved he would fall. Her father Ishkhan had closed his eyes for a minute on the divan so that shortly he could throw himself into some task. Her little brother managed to steal something from his father’s pocket, probably money, half of which he hid for himself inside his shirt or somewhere else. Keeping the other half in his fist, he wanted to give it to his sister secretly from his mother. He slipped about the house like a cat and managed to brush against his sister as though passing by, hiding from his mother. But his mother and her stepmother had seen, and came to snatch it from his hands; he escaped from the house beneath the table. Perhaps the pitiable, conscientious one among them also wanted to give his sister something: the timid brother, who had drawn aside with his neck bent and was afraid of his mother. Her father Ishkhan sprang up as if bitten by a snake to find some work, and in passing said something to his wife about the cardigan: “Give it, give it, give it, give it, woman, don’t begrudge it, give it.” As he left the house, passing her, he said something about the big-headed ugly boy who sat on the outside divan, playing with his shoe’s toe with the switch: “The lad’s a good lad… sensible, hardworking… doesn’t drink.”
“Hey!”
“Give it, give it, give it, don’t begrudge it, give it, woman.”
Her stepmother brought the cardigan, tried it on her and said, “Never mind giving it away; put it on, it’s cold.”
“Put it on, it’s cold, never mind giving it away.”
From the yard or garden came her father Ishkhan’s voice: “You’re late, the train’s time is passing.” But she and the big-headed ugly one, Simon, stood motionless on the veranda, especially she. Inside her courage was almost gathering; words were almost coming to say that she would not leave that wealthy house so bare, that this carpet, these carpets… these pillows, these warm beds… this cleanliness… these cows sitting solemnly in the yard… above all the carpets, and among them one in particular… Just then her brother Voskan broke away from the garden tree and came with a drunken rush: “She’s fifteen! Whose sister are you marrying off, man from Darpas?” But he fell on the veranda steps and went straight to sleep.
She looked at Simon, and Simon stood. She looked, and Simon straightened. He straightened and, in that cold evening, in that bitter world, swallowed. They took a step to descend from Ishkhan’s veranda, never again to look back at that wealthy, clean, miserly house where there was everything except lightness of heart.
Was Nerses with them, or not? At the cowshed door he seemed to be helping Ishkhan or standing beside Ishkhan as he worked. But then he suddenly appeared at the station in his black leather jacket, with his city friends, very self-assured. Simon was very wretched beside him, and for a moment she felt disgust for Simon and drew back; the next moment she hated Nerses and pitied Simon.
On the way down to the station, beneath the cemetery, she stopped, looked at Simon, looked towards the cemetery, and knelt and bent down.
“No, tears are not for us.”
She looked towards the cemetery, looked at Simon, and now she remembers saying, “My radiant mother…” Simon turned his head and swallowed, and she remembers saying, “We will live.” But there was no will to live and overcome in that man, and she threw herself on the ground, beat the ground and sobbed: “My radiant mother’s belt stayed in the enemy’s house… My mother’s silver belt stayed in the enemy’s house… My mother’s carpet… My radiant mother’s red-doe carpet… My mother’s golden-peacock kilim… The bracelet on my mother’s white hand.” But only she was crying; the world was deaf, the earth dry and cold…
Published in part. You can download the complete version (PDF).